Last Sunday we visited the Miniature Transylvania Park, situated in Szejke (Băile Seiche). For kids, the park looks like a huge playground and many wanted to go close to the miniature buildings when we were there, but the park is more than that.
In order to promote and boost tourism in Szeklerland we have realized a Mini Transylvania Park at Băile Seiche where visitors can see more than 90 models of historical monuments and medieval castles in Transylvania. In this park both adults and children can spend a meaningful day, among other interesting things they can make a round trip traveling by the mini Szekler steam locomotive, visiting the Orbán Balázs Visitor Centre. source
How To Get There
Mini Transilvania is located on the national road 13A, about 4 km from Odorheiu Secuiesc towards Praid and 95 km from Târgu Mureș. source
The 13A road will take you there and trust me, you just have to follow the crowd and you'll get there. Yes, there's a crowd, or most likely there will be a crowd when you visit as the place is quite popular and I don't think there are quiet days there, especially during summer. Getting there is easy, but parking will be a nightmare. We were lucky as we choose to go with a smaller car, instead of the other which is bigger in size and were able to find a spot, where to park.
The Idea
This idea is getting more and more ground these days. What idea you may ask. Let's take this park for example. It is a big park, containing more than 90 mock-ups of different historical buildings of Transylvania. Transylvania is huge, this project is not bound to a specific place, so it could be placed anywhere basically, but the owner(s) of the project decided to build it on Szejke, to boost tourism. I don't know how profitable the project is as I haven't seen the books, but judging by the number of tourists I saw there, things must be going well.
Similar projects are The Valley Of Fairies, which basically is a made of a few clay castles (small buildings) in the middle of nowhere, based on a legend. No one knows if the legend is true, but it's not an often visited tourist attraction, which can bring some nice benefits to the restaurants and inns of the area. The other such project I can mention here is the Upside Down House in Avrig, which I did not visit by the way. This is how you pin a place to the map, a place in the middle of nowhere, where (maybe) there's nothing else to see.
Szejke is not in the middle of nowhere and has a lot to offer, starting from the Székely gates, Balázs Orbán's monument, Balázs Orbán Memorial Center, the mineral water sources and the spa, but still, this miniature park is unique as I don't know if there's one similar in Romania.
However, as I said, this park is more than just a tourist attraction, if you are open to learning history.
Miniature Transylvania Park
On the way to the entrance, you find the souvenir area, where you can stock up with the usual things, like magnets, books, cups, glasses, clocks, toys and so on.
This is the entrance and expect a crowd, even bigger than what you see on the photo. A group of 40 just entered before I took the photo.
Tickets are not cheap, as an adult, you have to pay 35RON, which is 7€ roughly, but there are discounts for students, kids and groups of 10 and larger. Plus, you get a 10% voucher to the Insect Park (which is near miniature park) and another one of 10% to the Legendás Pizza Restaurant.
This is the map to the park, to give you an idea how big it is.
And when you step in, this is what you see. The first miniature castle, which is the Sinaia castle, a very well know, historical one. The castle is called Peleș Castle actually and was built for King Carol I, the monarch of Romania from 1866 to his death in 1914.
The good thing on the educational part was that the description was made in 3 languages, which should be a norm in Romania and was printed on these round plates, which you could rotate according to your needs. The location of the building was marked on a map, for you to have an idea where it is.
Another interesting thing about seeing these miniatures is that you see these buildings from above as all of them are on the ground. When you visit them at their original location, you can only see them from the ground and as most of them are castles, churches and bigger buildings, you have no idea how large they are.
The Citadel Fortress of Brasov.
The Fortress was an important point of defense, located outside the city of Brasov. At the beginning of the fifteenth century, there was only a watchtower there, which was completed in 1524 with a wooden bastion with four towers. source
While I was admiring these fortresses, was wondering how many of them I've visited so far.
This is the fortress church of Viscri. Viscri is famous now in Romania, not because of its history, but because former Prince Charles of Wales, now King of the United Kingdom, has some properties there and before his coronation, he used to visit Viscri regularly.
This is the Brancoveanu Castle, situate at Sambata de Sus.
Fun fact. You can see there's a QR code on each board. My camera quickly read each code (yeah, we live in a smart era) and always asked me what I wanted to do. It was kind of annoying, but it's actually a good thing. There's an app in the app store that you can download and listen to the audio guide. These QR codes are the numbers to the descriptions. I still need to download the app and listen to the guide, it must be interesting and fun too.
The Brancoveanu Monastery, at Sambata de Sus, same place as the castle above.
The railway is not just for decorative purposes. There's a train (a small one obviously) going round the place, so if you're lazy to go on foot, or have small kids with you, you can take a ride and have some fun :)
There's a tunnel as well, to make it more fun.
The day we visited the place was extremely hot. I don't know how many degrees were there but must have been around 34C or so. As you can see, there are no trees and except that covered space, which is the train station by the way, there's no place to hide from the sun. However, at the entrance, you can pick up a big white umbrella with the park's logo and use it for free, while you're visiting.
Last, but not least, a few words about my plan. After visiting the park, I decided to make a list with all the buildings I saw there and mark those that I have already visited. The rest is like a to do list, to visit them in the future. Let's see how long the list of not seen is, but I suspect it's long as there are more than 80 fortresses, churches and buildings here. Would be nice to visit them all and pin them on Pinmapple's map :) What do you say? It would be an amazing opportunity to learn history as well.
This is the first part of my post, there will e another one, to show you some of the miniatures I photographed.
The park is definitely a place to visit. Don't miss it if you're in the area.
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